


love in the times of retail

by Yuisaki



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Retail, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23538097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuisaki/pseuds/Yuisaki
Summary: Kenma and Shouyou get together in the hell of retail on Christmas. Shouyou claims it’s romantic. Kenma likes to feign amnesia.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kozume Kenma
Comments: 8
Kudos: 70





	love in the times of retail

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bwyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bwyn/gifts).



Kenma has seen hell in two places:

  1. Kuroo’s fridge in sophomore year of high school, during the week his mom left on a business trip. Kenma opened the fridge expecting at least some eggs, milk, or maybe even ketchup, if the gods were merciful. They were not. Instead Kenma watched something that looked like a head of cabbage squirm, and because he inhaled the fumes of whatever the hell that was, he proceeded to open a jug of milk. Nothing else would explain why he so much as approached that hell container. It was green from the outside. It bubbled. It boiled. It burst in his face. And then for three days, the ghost of his grandfather—the bitchy one—kept telling him pull up his socks. He wasn’t even _wearing_ socks, then.
  2. TJ Maxx during Christmas. It hasn’t even been an hour into his shift. He has eight left. Enough said.



“Kenma,” says Shouyou thoughtfully, which is a bad sign because he never does anything thoughtfully unless it’s about volleyball or human relations or meat buns, “do you think the moms will be less likely to kill us if we smile?”

Kenma stares out into the chaos ahead of him. Three women are shrieking in the baby aisle, and over in the candy aisle, what seems like half a dozen men are duking it out over the last bag of discounted luxury chocolate. It’s not even luxurious. Kenma bought that chocolate bag for 200 yen at the convenience store right after Valentine’s Day.

There’s glass spilled on the floor too, and their coworker Takashi was supposed to have taken care of it twenty minutes ago, but it’s been sixteen minutes since he disappeared into the crowd. At this point Kenma is starting to think he was swallowed by the demon that must be rampaging in this TJ Maxx. Of course, the only force separating them from this chaos is a thin barricade of counter and cash register. Kenma has no doubt that these moms will jump him if he hesitates.

There’s already sweat beading on the back of his neck. He’s a dead man.

“I think they’ll kill us either way,” Kenma decides.

“Kenma, you’re sweating,” says Shouyou, bypassing Kenma’s reply entirely. People think Shouyou is an optimist. People don’t realize Hinata is just skilled at ignoring realities he finds distasteful. “Are you okay?”

Is he okay, Shouyou says. Was Soren his favorite character in the Fire Emblem series. Can Mario jump in Super Mario Party. Is he in love with Hinata Shouyou.

“Okay,” says Shouyou, reading the twitch of exasperation in Kenma’s eyebrow. “Um, wow. You’re sweating a lot. Do you. Do you need water? Food? A volleyball? Oh! Do you want to hold my hand?”

“Why,” Kenma says, instead of accepting, like the panicked idiot he can be sometimes, “on Earth would you hold my hand.”

“Because my sister likes it!”

“And I remind you of your sister?”

“Well, you’re cute,” says Shouyou, tilting his head. Kenma’s neck sweat spills uncomfortably down across his spine.

Shouyou leans in close and holds his hand, beaming. It is a little better, at least until the nearest mom chokes Kenma with his apron over an expired coupon. He takes it back. This is worse than Kuroo’s fridge.

**

Hour two goes a little better. The rush has mostly settled down at one p.m., which leaves him and Shouyou scrounging around for any unbroken goods to place back on the shelves. And for any Takashi corpses. Or pieces of Takashi corpse.

“Isn’t it a little scary that there’s not even blood on the floor?” Shouyou says, wondering. “Like, if he was swallowed, then there’d be parts of him left, right?”

“Not if he was swallowed whole.”

“Ooh, I didn’t think about that. Nice, Kenma!”

Kenma doesn’t know if his grim theory about the demise of his coworker could be called “nice” in any universe, but Shouyou is smiling. So. “Thanks.”

Shouyou studies him. Kenma knows Shouyou is studying him, because he’s felt the weight of Shouyou’s gaze time and time again across the net back in high school. It’s like the five layers of clothing Kuroo shoves Kenma into during the winter months, or the sensation of sun on his skin after he’s pulled two all-nighters and hasn’t seen sun for maybe a week. It’s warm. It’s so heavy. It’s Shouyou.

“If I said that I,” Shouyou says, before pausing, biting his lip. He doesn’t duck his head, but he does avert his gaze and stare off somewhere around Kenma’s left shoulder. Then his ears flush pink. Kenma hates himself for finding this cute, like every other part of Shouyou. Any other time it would be fine because Kenma finding Shouyou cute is just a fact of life—like he’ll never be able to run a marathon, or he’ll never quit playing games even when he turns withered and old—but Shouyou’s cuteness is distracting him from the important part of this conversation.

Essentially: Kenma blacks out for a second. It may be the all-nighter. It may be the stress of Takashi’s missing corpse. It may be Hinata Shouyou. Or all the above.

“…What would you say?” Shouyou finishes.

“What?” Kenma asks. He blinks when Shouyou’s pink ears don’t go away. In fact, they just get pinker. Odd. “Shouyou?”

“Meat buns,” Shouyou blurts, and then, as if Kenma couldn’t hear him the first time: “MEAT BUNS. IF I TOLD YOU THAT I WANTED TO BUY MEAT BUNS. WHAT WOULD YOU DO.”

Kenma blinks again. The pink ears don’t disappear. “Um,” Kenma says, flustered despite himself. Shouyou’s _ears._ “I’d come with you to buy them.”

Shouyou blinks back. This is not entirely weird by itself. But then he blinks again, slower. His ears flush even _pinker._ “You would come with me to buy meat buns,” Shouyou repeats. “Are you—are you sure?”

Kenma feels like he’s missing something _big_ here. “I would,” he says. He takes care to enunciate the words. It is three p.m. at TJ Maxx post-morning Christmas rush, so that probably means that TJ Maxx has been converted into a liminal space where nothing makes sense. The world realigns again. Shouyou’s ears are pink and they are blinking slow and time means nothing in TJ Maxx. Okay.

“So you wouldn’t buy them for me,” Shouyou says, but phrases it almost like a question.

For some reason, Kenma finds himself fishing in his memories of dating sims for possible replies. It’s like there’s a right answer Shouyou is searching for, but Kenma isn’t giving it. Not that that’s his fault.

“If I had money I might,” Kenma says. “But I’m saving up for the new Animal Crossing game. So you’re lower on the list. I’d buy them only for 200 yen or less.”

“What is it with you and 200 yen,” Shouyou says, but smiles and reaches for Kenma's hand. It doesn't make sense. Shouyou is suffering through hell on Christmas with him and they are both severely underpaid and Shouyou is saying that he wants Kenma to buy him meat buns. Then Kenma considers it. In Shouyou's head, the math is simple: meat buns equals volleyball equals Kageyama equals setters equals Kenma equals... Meat buns. And love, apparently, in Shouyou's convoluted way. 

"You couldn't have asked me out like a normal person," Kenma asks, incredulous that Shouyou has asked him out through the concept of meat buns, and that, despite the awful confession, he is still holding Shouyou's hand. God, Kenma has low standards. Or good ones. You just never know with Shouyou. "You had to do it in front of Takashi's corpse?"

"I'm sure he's not dead," Shouyou replies, like that's the main problem here. But Shouyou is holding his hand and the store is quiet and the ground outside is glistening with snow that sends light shattering across Hinata's brown eyes. It's warm. Shouyou is here with him. 

But Shouyou also delivered the world's worst confession through a meat bun metaphor, in the hell of retail. Kenma is a little miffed, reasonably.

"You're buying me meat buns later," Kenma decides. "For that awful confession. And I want a do-over. And if people ever ask us how we got together, we're telling them a different story. That was so bad, Shouyou."

"I thought it was good!"

"It wasn't."

"Was too."

"Was not."

"Was too."

"Was not. And we have to get up. The next wave of moms is coming."

"Fine," Shouyou says. A beat, and then he adds: "Was too."

"Was not," Kenma says, but he is smiling, and the day is looking okay. So when Shouyou chimes in with another, "Was too," Kenma sighs and lets it go. For now.

**Author's Note:**

> i've been sitting on this fic for like two months and at this point whatever i'm posting whatever the hell i want nothing matters and animal crossing has consumed my life. talk to me at yuisakii on tumblr! maybe i'll post more fics soon who knows. stay safe everyone!


End file.
